chair
Object
Accession Number
2011.010Description
One cherry or maple faux bamboo side chair with cane seat, the back with two top rails and one bottom rail with three turned faux bamboo splats, below the seat a single turned faux bamboo stretcher front and back, and two on each side.Narrative
Faux bamboo furniture was very popular during the mid 1880’s and the Dunsmuirs probably had some examples in Craigdarroch.This example in the form of a chair was acquired for display in the Castle's third floor bathroom where it was intended to accompany a similar looking free-standing faux bamboo towel rack (see 2011.009).
Chairs were useful in Victorian bathrooms where people might wish to sit to disrobe or to dry themselves or to groom their feet, etc. There was probably a chair in the bathroom where this one is now displayed during the Dunsmuir era. Sometimes, a bathroom chair might be used by a servant assisting his or her employer in the bath. For example, the 1903 Hopper vs. Dunsmuir Will Case transcript contains the following testimony from Alexander Dunsmuir’s valet, Louis Ginter:
Answer: So when I told Mr. Dunsmuir that she would meet us at the train, he was lying in his bed at the time.
Question: Where?
Answer: At the Castle.
Question: Here at his mother’s residence at Victoria?
Answer: Yes sir. He showed me a telegram that he has from Mrs. Wallace, and he was taking a bath there after he got up, and he made me go and get that telegram three or four times.
Question: I might add to that, what occurred between you with regard to the communication he had received?
Answer: Well, he was so glad to get the telegram that he made me read it to him five or six times while he was taking a bath.
Louis Ginter probably sat in a chair while he read the telegram repeatedly to Alexander Dunsmuir while he lay in a Craigdarroch bathtub.
1.British Columbia Archives GR-2731 Hopper vs. Dunsmuir case file 12/92 Transcript from Victoria (Hon. Justice Drake) Victoria, December 3, 1903.
